Pubs - or lack of them

Same in Knaresborough. Back in the mid/late 80s when I first started going out there was about 40 pubs, I'll bet there's not even half that now.

 

Cross Keys went many years ago ...the pub trade was still healthy at that time...I was surprised about the Bull though.

 

First pub I ever went in with my old man, Beryl's hubby Harold Hodgson was the landlord...my old man was a regular when it was Barnsley Bitter....stopped going in soon after the switch to keg John Smith's.

 

The Coach & Horses shouldn't have gone either, Geoff Salmons was going to buy it but he wanted planning permission to put a restaurant on the back, unfortunately BMBC turned him down.

 

We did the enhanced version of that...Bridge Inn...Cross Keys...Rising Sun...Hewer & Brewer...George...Sportsman...the Drop...Wat Tyler...Miners Arms...Railway...and then take a left and finish at The Countryman. I admit I had to drop onto shandy at strategic points where the beer was sh**e.

 

Where’s that?

 

As someone who tried to run a leasehold pub. I'll tell you exactly why they've disappeared or are disappearing the fault lies at the door of the brewery's / pub leasing companies (often the same parent company). They screw their tenants with enormous rents and make them upkeep their run down buildings, then charge them top rates for their beer etc The breweries then do deals with the tenants competition to sell them cheap beer (ironically subsidized by the tenants) which kills the trade in the pub, why would you buy say a pint of Johns Smith for £4.00 in a leased pub when you can buy the same pint in a WMC for £2.00.Then once they've run out of gullible people to take on the lease for a pub they knock it down and build houses on the land. The big brewers just want to be able to sell there beer to supermarkets and clubs and liquidate their Pub estates to pay dividends to share holders.

 

Everything you have said there is correct...although it's more pub owning companies than breweries to blame.
When I first went into the trade, Landlords ( in the main) had been in a pub for years on fixed agreements...if you improved the barrelage they would take a fixed percentage in extra rent, meaning you knew where you were, and it was in both your interest and the brewery's interest to keep the place in order, well run.. and sell more beer. The major breweries had all been taken over and became purely accountancy based and were doing away with fixed agreements, the top hat on it was the 1989/90 Beer Orders legislation, well meaning but badly worded. After that Pub owning companies were formed whose only interest was screwing a tenant for non fixed agreement rent and overpriced beer...the intent being to screw a tenant/lessee for every penny they could get and find another well meaning person with a bit of capital and rose coloured spectacles to screw.
We were free trade and avoided the above, but even so they were selling beer and lager to supermarkets at knockdown prices, the supermarkets could retail beers to the public, incuding VAT at half the price we could buy it ex Vat direct from the brewery at allegedly 'wholesale' prices. A perfect storm that has been playing out since then.

 

Considering Hemsworth was then a village, it boasted all these pubs and clubs when I was going out in the 80s, and almost as many chippys.

Melbourne
West End Club
Beeches Club
Blue Bell
Trades & Labour Club
George & Dragon
Kings Head
St Patrick’s Club
Alpha Club
Cons Club
Victoria Hotel
United Services
Top Hat Club
Spion Kop
Rugby Club

7 of those have long since gone. It’s sad because there are some great memories, but I’m probably part of the problem because I’m one of many that rarely goes in a pub anymore.

 

The Halfway was our meeting place (I lived in Bolton and my mates lived in Goldthorpe and Thurnscoe), we'd also go next door for a game of snooker in Highgate club. We also used to go in the Buxton in Goldthorpe and the Dearne Hotel...

 

Might be before your time Brush, but did you go in when the big room on the left was the games room with the snooker table? ( before it was made into a disco)

 

Didn't know there was a racist part of town where is it?

 

Before my time, it was always a disco in my time. The big room used to have a band on on Friday nights and a disco on Sundays. Both nights were always rammed back then, hard to imagine it's demise. I reckon we started going there from 1972/3 when we were in 6th form at Wath Grammar.

 

I live in the Swadlincote area and there are only 2 pubs in the town centre, The Foresters and The Sir Nigel Gresley (Wetherspoons), when I first came here, there used to be at least 6. Strangely, Newhall where we live, which is more like a large village, has 6 pubs.

 

Barnsley north. According to the general election exit polls that some on this board blindly sucked the teet of, we’re all reform voters.

 

Thanks, we used to go in to the Halfway 5/6 nights a week...I'm trying to remember the name of the family that ran it....the 'old' man and his wife retired to take an off license round the South Kirby way and it was assumed his daughter would keep the pub, unfortunately Sam Smith's said no and fetched a flash Harry type up from down south who had been in the bakery industry. The large games room was the heart of the pub, one f/s snooker table, two pool tables and two dartboards, full most every night. The new guy sold the snooker table and one of the pool tables and put a pool table and one dart board in the much smaller 'best side'. He refitted the games room as a disco and basically drove most of his tap room regulars away. I think that must have been about 1977/8. We went down to the Cross St club for a while, then the Pinfold at Cudworth and the Furnace at Hoyland.

 

Having lived in West Bretton, as lovely as it is, it's rubbish not being within walking distance of a pub. Plan to never let that happen again...

 

My older brother was more likely to frequent all those places. Although I lived in Highgate for 6 years, I went to school in Mexborough, so I drank more over in that area.

 

This should be in the "where to live in Barnsley thread" as a warning.
Isn't there even a bar in the cricket club?

 

There’s a correlation between racists though eh